I worked there the first year they were open. Never again. Cineplex Odeon may have been a decent chain, but they treated their employees like crap.

That being said, the original six screens were beautiful. The last movie I saw there was “This is It,” and it was on one of the new screens. They seemed pretty decent, nothing to really write home about.

I think that Disney’s association with the Crest actually goes back to the Pacific Theatres era. In fact, they seemed to have their hooks into a couple different Pacific screens before they finally settled on the El Capitan, including the Cinerama Dome. But getting back to the Crest, I always liked this screen. The interior was a bit over the top, but I always had a good time there.

They had their last film presentation on Dec. 4, 2010. It was a midnight showing of Tim Burton’s “Batman.” The theatre is indeed all digital now. Not sure whether the xD screens are 4K, but the rest of the theatre is most likely 2K.

Does anyone know if they upgraded the sound system in the big theatre? I’m going to see “Blade Runner: The Final Cut” there, and somehow I doubt it’ll be presented in 5.1. The audio in that theatre has always been distorted for as long as I can remember. It’s just a shame Warner Bros. didn’t pick a more technically-capable but equally beautiful theatre to show it at.

This was one of the first theatres I went to when I first went to L. A. I saw “Last Action Hero” here when they were still testing out SDDS. Both SDDS and the film stank.

I went back about ten years later on vacation, and I saw “Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle.” I think there were only five or six people in the theatre. It was one of the coolest theatre experiences I’ve ever had—to be all but alone in a single-screen THX-certified movie palace like that…

I remember how beautiful this theatre used to be. I saw two movies here before they split it up—“Gandhi” in 1982, and “Return of the Jedi” on opening day in 1983. Both presentations were in 70mm, and “Jedi” was the first time I noticed Dolby Stereo.

After that, I only saw two more movies there after the conversion—“Ransom” and “Outbreak.” I was so disgusted with what they did to the place that I never went back. IMHO, it represents everything that went wrong with Cineplex Odeon when Loews/Sony muscled its way into Chicago.